


misery loves merriment

by painting



Series: Umbrella Academy [7]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Closet Key trope, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Gay Guidance, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Outsider, Recreational Drug Use, Underage Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-03-04 22:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18821848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/painting/pseuds/painting
Summary: When he can, Klaus enacts the artistry of charisma, indulges his unending, clawing devotion for the grounding comfort of human connection, uses the ceiling of his practice and resources to his advantage and shares the high with others. The older he gets, the more he needs to carry and the less he has to spare.





	1. fourteen

**Author's Note:**

> obvious blanket warning for depictions of substance abuse and the way a relationship with drugs changes as an addiction develops (and how it interacts with the utilization of charisma as a defense mechanism) -- i.e. klaus being fun so he doesn't have to be scared
> 
> secondary warning for pieces of internalized homophobia/gay confusion and processing coming out to oneself in this chapter (not from klaus, but he's there to help)

The umbrella kid is cooler than you'd think for someone who has to wear knee-high socks every day and is only allowed to watch TV on the weekends. Everyone had thought he was a narc when he showed up last fall until Ashley had admitted to inviting him to their group after watching him pickpocket a guy on the street for a shit ton of painkillers. She didn't even know he was famous. 

He's taller now and his hair is longer and curlier than the pompadour crew cut he wore on that interview a couple years ago, so nobody else had felt embarrassed about not recognizing him either because it's not flattering to be impressed by celebrities. You're not supposed to care.

Besides: Klaus acts weird, but he doesn't act like a celebrity.

His hands are always filthy when he meets up with everyone at the bleachers after dark. He's not exactly coordinated, especially for a guy with psychic abilities who stops bank robbers, so it can't be a very smooth endeavor for him to amble down the fire escape and press his palms on the gritty railing as he grips it to get himself down in one piece. Matt doesn't mind touching them to catch the bowl and lighter when Klaus passes them and says, "You're good, Matthew, it's still hot enough if you hurry."

Matt lets the smoke build up inside the pipe and breathes in while Klaus touches the back of his shoulder with the affectionate support he's known for. He stares at the sky, purple-orange from light pollution and not a star in sight.

While Matt holds the burn in his lungs, Klaus takes his hand back and says out of nowhere, "I wish I went to this school."

"What the hell do you mean?" asks Ayana, who skipped a grade and is acing all her classes. She swings her legs from the step above him and pokes his shoulder with her toe. "No you fuckin' don't." 

Klaus grabs her entire foot and then leans back, elbows up behind him in a way that might be comfortable on a sofa but has to be sore on cold ridged metal. He lets go and gives it a little toss in the air.

"Yeah I do. My dad sucks," he says.

"Everyone's dad sucks," Matt says on his exhale, smoke leaving his mouth in an inelegant wispy-white sheet. He hands the supplies back to Klaus and they brush fingers again.

"Warm hands, Matthew," Klaus comments as he passes them up to Ayana.

"You guys skipped me," Ashley complains.

Ayana waves her off and says, "It's fine, you can just go next."

She takes a long hit and hands the bowl to Ashley, who says, "It's almost cashed, assholes."

"We don't have any more?" Matt asks. 

"No, I'm not picking up 'til tomorrow," Ashley tells him.

"That's okay," Klaus says. He doesn't seem bothered by it because he doesn't seem bothered by anything; they almost got busted last week and he chattered away making fun of the cop while they hid beneath the seats in Matt's car and the rest of them practically had a heart attack. "We can shotgun the last of it."

Klaus leans his body jerkily like he's punching Matt with his shoulder to indicate he meant him. Klaus is always touching everybody, light and delicate and sometimes without a reason, but this one still catches Matt by surprise. He doesn't know what to do so he bumps him back and listens to Klaus laugh shortly as though Matt had physically knocked the huff of delight right out of him.

"We did it before," Klaus says, holding out his index finger and waving his hand back and forth, pointing between himself and Ashley. "It's cool. I'll show you, okay?"

Klaus does show him and Matt loves it and tries not to grab his friend's bicep in the process for the sake of both passion and balance. Nobody has anything to say about it when he does that anyway because he can't help it, not even Klaus. He's hard and skinny and sharp but Matt has to let go eventually anyway. 

Without anything left to smoke, it's not long before everyone gets bored and decides to split for the night. It's barely half past midnight, but Ashley says she's going to skip first period anyway and decides to take the long way walk home to clear her head. Klaus had offered to escort her and nobody could tell if he was serious about it (probably not).

Ayana lives a few blocks away and is not as tough as she seems, so Matt gives her a ride and Klaus tags along because he likes to keep himself from going home for as long as he can help it. Matt pulls into the alley so she can go in through the back, even though her mom works nights and won't be home for a few hours. They live on the first floor so she might just not want to wake the neighbors when the jingle of her keys echoes through the stairwell. 

Before she's even closed the door to the building, Klaus crawls to the front seat and reaches for the lever to pull the chair back. He kisses Matt just like before but this time without the weed, and Matt stays illegally in the neighbor's back driveway and doesn't bother taking the car out of park.

"I thought you had a thing with Ashley?" Matt says after a few minutes or maybe more. He's not actually sure how long it's been, but that's how long it feels. 

Klaus kisses him again but stays close.

"I dunno, we made out," he says. "It was pretty good, but it wasn't… I don't know, maybe she was too soft, or she wasn't bigger than me, or something. I just think it could've been better." 

"Is this better right now?" Matt asks. He feels weird. He feels insecure and worried about pissing off his friend or dealer or whatever Ashley is to him, but he feels aligned, too. He feels balanced when he's touching Klaus like this, like he's doing something he's supposed to be doing, and that's nice enough to cancel out all of the fear and then some.

"Yeah, way better," Klaus says. "I usually like kissing guys a lot more. And you're very handsome, Matthew, very talented."

"Thank you," Matt says. Klaus might be lying, but it's nice to hear from him so Matt doesn't care. Without thinking, he cradles the other part of his statement in the front of his mind and asks, "Are you gay?"

It might have been the wrong question if he'd asked another guy he was hooking up with for the first time, but asking Klaus doesn't feel wrong at all.

Klaus responds at first by looking like he's never even thought about it, like he's kissed plenty of dudes but never once wondered what it could mean about himself. That must be nice, Matt thinks.

"I don't know," Klaus says contemplatively, and it sounds like that doesn't bother him, either. "Maybe. Probably."

"I think am," Matt confesses and tries to make it sound like it doesn't mean very much to him.

"Yeah?"

Klaus meets his eyes and it means everything to him.

His voice was soft and curious which makes Matt get tangled all of a sudden. "I just don't wanna, like…" he starts to say. Klaus leans back and gets comfortable so he can listen to him. "What if I meet a-- I don't know, dude."

"You dont have to know," Klaus promises, as though he knows what Matt wants to say before Matt does. "No, you don't have to know anything."

But he wants to. "What _if_ I _do_ want to fuck a girl one day?" 

Klaus hums like Matt's old therapist used to hum and Matt waits for his insight. He's used to not knowing what to do when it comes to things like this. Nobody ever taught him.

"You might," Klaus says after a moment. Matt doesn't like his answer and reminds himself that Klaus isn't a fortune teller, but that's dumb and doesn't make him feel better. "Who knows. You could just be gay now and then be something else later, if you want. It doesn't really matter." 

Klaus is probably gay, Matt decides.

"Would you have sex with a girl?" he asks.

He doesn't think it's a difficult question, but Klaus takes a second. "I guess I'm open to it," he says. "I don't really want to, so probably not, but it might be fun. Girls are fun sometimes. I'm just saying that if I ever want to then there's no rule that says I can't."

"You don't think about it?"

"What, sex with girls? Not really."

"No, just-- I mean, about any of this. It doesn't seem like you do."

Klaus looks like he's about a thousand years old. He's still smiling, he's always smiling when things get serious, and he's still letting Matt hold his hand. His lips are swollen but they're tight, and he loosens them to show his teeth but then he has to look away. Matt tries to follow his line of sight but decides to give him some privacy.

"Nah," Klaus says, "I've just got other shit to think about."

His voice is neutral and pleasant and there's something really sad about that. Matt doesn't know why. All he can do is feel it and wonder what kind of conversation Klaus is trying to protect him from.

He's never seen Klaus get quiet like this and it makes him worry that he might be upset. He doesn't know very much about Klaus besides that he's fun and hot and easy to be around and learned how to score drugs and find dealers remarkably fast, so it's not easy to read him or to know what kinds of topics might send him somewhere dark. Matt had never followed the whole superhero thing and Klaus doesn't talk about what his life is like at home, aside from mentioning that he doesn't like it, and now that Matt knows him personally it'd feel creepy and invasive to look up any press junket shit from his past.

So that means that once again, Matt's sitting next to Klaus with no idea know what to do about him. However, unlike before, he's got some experience and broken a new physical barrier, so in a panic, he tilts Klaus back over and kisses him with an already comfortable familiarity.

"Oh! Well okay," Klaus responds, and he's happy again, thank God thank God thank God.

This is so much easier than whatever emotional stuff Matt was scared was about to happen, but not only because most things would've been. He isn't the first boy Klaus has romanced, apparently, obviously, but it doesn't feel like Klaus is his first either, even though he definitely, definitely is. Matt was destined to do this and feels like the first sixteen years of his life were a bust because he wasted them doing literally anything else.

Klaus has to break off after nobody knows how long but it wasn't long enough and probably never could be.

"I'm coming down, Matthew, darling," he says, looking up through his eyelashes. He's used a pet name on Matt before-- he's used one on everyone before-- but it's different hearing it from him now. Klaus inhales long and quick and deep through his teeth. "Do you have like… You don't have anything else, do you?"

Matt is still plenty high off of the exact same stuff. How long has Klaus been smoking with them? Not even a year, right? He'd been a lightweight when they started smoking him up. It was cute.

"Uh…" He thinks about it. "Anything else, like…?"

"I mean anything. Like even Robitussin or something," Klaus says. He's calm, still friendly, but something's wrong and Matt has never seen him act like this, either.

"I'm dry, dude, I'm sorry," Matt says.

"That's okay!" Klaus reassures him. "Fuck. No, don't worry about it. I can _tell_ you want to worry but you're too gorgeous to worry, Matthew, it's okay." He doesn't move yet, but his body relaxes-- almost too much, like he's forcing himself to do it. "But I doooooo need you to take me home, in that case, unfortunately for the both of us."

"Okay," Matt says immediately so Klaus doesn't think he's going to trap him or take advantage of him or something. "Absolutely. Oh my God, that's no problem--"

"Heeeeeyyy." Klaus rubs up and down Matt's forearm, more solidly than his usual gentle back and forth. "Man, it's okay, seriously. You're fine. I'd invite you up, but…"

Matt turns the key in the ignition and blinks a few times to determine whether he's sober enough to drive another six blocks up. "It's all right, Klaus. I know. I sneak out too," he says. 

"My bastard father doesn't care if I'm gay," Klaus clarifies. "Just that I'm enjoying myself, experiencing happiness, experiencing the world, but I can't do that any of that unless he's off in evil dreamland tormenting the Sandman and all his sheep. And I've just gotta…"

"I get it. You're kinda like Cinderella."

Klaus smiles and it reaches his eyes.

Matt drops him off a few blocks away from his house just like Klaus asks him to, and then he sees him the next night just after ten-thirty like always. Some nights Klaus doesn't show, but he doesn't say why, and not a lot of time passes before his absences start to double up. Although he fits in with everybody like he's known them for his entire life, at the end of the day Klaus is still always going to be the odd one out. No one's ever been able to see him during daylight and he never allows the mystery of his life outside of the after-dark drugs circle to get any brighter.

And despite the quality time they spend together a few times a week, Matt doesn't know much more about Klaus than he did when they first met, though he does watch his tolerance climbing. 

Unsurprisingly, the student becomes the master and it isn't long before Klaus starts bringing his own stuff to the field. His weed is better than Ashley's. He doles out mushrooms a few times and they're not as life-changing as Matt expected them to be, and sometimes Klaus offers other shit -- pills, not powders -- but nobody else is up to joining him in downing those. 

Alcohol isn't off limits, though, and even though it's harder to get in the city than street drugs before you turn 21, Klaus somehow scores an abundance of that too, and his explanations as to how are always different, vague, impossible to gauge for honesty. Most of the time Klaus appears to know that they know he's fucking around, but that doesn't mean he's any more likely to give them a real answer.

The last time he sees them, Klaus leaves a bottle of half-empty Ciroc vodka, which is French and probably expensive, under the backseat of Matt's car and promises to pick it up later.

"So long as you don't finish it before I get a chance, _mon chéri,_ " he adds before he closes the passenger side door and glides down the sidewalk to the shackles of his father's urban mansion, his silhouette lanky and sparkling and beautiful, and by then Matt knows Klaus well enough to recognize that he's saying goodbye. 

Klaus doesn't come around again after that. Matt stops smoking on the bleachers and tries not to miss him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want to be careful in depicting the intricacies of substance abuse and ongoing mental illness and trauma. my biggest ever fear is making it either look like something fun and attractive (to see in others or to engage with yourself) or to make it such a huge component of a character that it becomes defining instead of another facet of their depth, so i hope i can do it justice. i've been there before and i am so glad to have been given a character with so many significant personal/societal struggles and have them not be made into a joke or a riot or a major identifier, but still illustrating how heavily these things can influence the way someone interacts with the world.
> 
> also i wanted to write some outsider pov words and it would be too sad for me to write about drug addiction from the perspective of a tired or judgmental sibling. see you guys next chapter, age nineteen!


	2. nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no big warnings here other than some faint judgmental attitudes about drugs

Vanya's brother wears the kindest, comfiest smile as he pinches something long and white between his fingers and asks, "Do you mind?"

"No." Does she? Nobody has ever smoked in here before. "Go ahead."

He doesn't waste time in pulling a tie-dye print lighter out of-- somewhere, it must have been somewhere, but his pants are too tight for pockets and his coat is slung over the back of the couch-- and cups a hand around it to keep the flame alive. The apartment immediately smells like it shouldn't have Vanya's sheet music and a thick plastic bottle of antacids on the coffee table.

Klaus looks relieved as he smoothly pulls in his first hit. Physically, he relaxes, but something about his face becomes softer and strangely vulnerable. It reminds Jamie of the look her parents get when they thank God for answering their desperate prayers.

"You smoke anything?" he asks after he's held the vapor in his lungs and exhaled it straight up into the air like a disappearing ghostly fountain. He takes another drag immediately. 

"Oh, I…" A couple of times at parties at freshman orientation last year year when a bowl was passed around. The experience felt more clouded with paranoia than giggly relaxation. "No, not really." 

"Do you want to?" he follows up, his face neutral as another wispy grey cloud billows out through his chapped lips and waltzes behind his head, but he doesn't hold anything out for her to take yet. "It's just marijuana, promise. Nothing exciting."

"No, thank you. That's okay."

"You sure, buttercup? I've got plenty."

A couple of sparse nerves spark up hot and sharp in her spine and through her stomach. It's hard to tell if it’s coming from Klaus or from Jamie's own shitty neuroses, but she kind of wishes Vanya hadn't left them alone while she's off stealing him a free lunch from the dining hall, because Jamie can't tell if this guy is going to peer pressure her or not. More firmly, she repeats, "That's okay."

"All right, suit yourself," Klaus says. The threads of smoke he'd just blown out have already dissolved into a fog, making the air around him a little hazy. More quietly, musingly, he mumbles, "I'm not sure I want to, either." 

He takes a long drag without coughing and Jamie doesn't know what that means. He leaves shortly after Vanya feeds him a lunch of glazed miso turnips and Irish lamb stew ("It's all they had left," Vanya promises, and Klaus eats the whole thing leisurely with gratitude), and waves goodbye without saying where he's going or whether he'll be in touch. Vanya puts away all of the cookware she just stole and tells Jamie she thinks he's probably still homeless.

Jamie wants to ask why, since he's not estranged enough to cut contact with his sister and Jamie knows their family has plenty of money to provide him a safe place to stay, but she keeps mum because Vanya says it like she doesn't quite understand, either.

It's easy to understand the not understanding, at least. He seemed nice in the same way Vanya is, but something about Klaus had been off in a way Jamie can't place, and it wasn't just the drugs.

Klaus shows again not even a month later, during daylight and unannounced just like before. His hair's just slightly shorter now, still mighty and wild but not in his eyes so much, and Jamie notices the charcoal smudging around his waterline separating brilliant green from puffy pink. Aside from that, he still looks too glitzy and smells too sweet for his reputation.

"How did you even get in the building?" Vanya asks after she lets him in and clacks their hollow student housing door shut, but Klaus doesn't answer. Like before, he doesn't seem to be all there, his gaze teasing in and out of focus. "Jesus, when's the last time you slept?" 

He blinks at her, slowly. 

"You're actually _not_ the one I'm here to visit, though it's nice to meet your brilliant ego, Vanya," he says as though he didn't hear her and is responding to something else. "I'm coming back from-- from… well-- his name's not important-- I just thought it'd be a delight to stop by and see my brilliant little sister, is all. No agenda. Just saying hello."

He waves at Jamie, too. 

"Seriously, you look exhausted," Vanya stresses while Jamie adorns a tight smile and waves back. "I'll get you some coffee. Actually--"

"Oh, well, Vanya, I wouldn't want to _impose…_ "

Vanya holds out a bottle of water for him to take. "It's okay. There's still some left in the pot from this morning, but you should probably drink this first."

"How sweet, Sabrina the Teenage Nurse."

"Funny. You'd make a good Aunt Zelda," Vanya says on her way to the kitchen.

The puff of the cheap couch cushions complements the rusty squeak of its springs as Klaus drops himself on top of their furniture horizontally, then there's a faint and shrill rumble of the rough denim of his outsized jeans against its upholstery as he slides down and shifts around until his head is on the armrest.

"What are you studying?" he asks with his forearm covering his eyes, head tilted all the way back. His voice is soft and determined, like he's insisting on fighting something in his body just for the sake of having a conversation with her. He lifts his arm and peeks at Jamie, opening only one eye so they can connect. "Anything I might understand?"

Jamie watches him open the other eye and blink hotly, stretching them both too wide a couple of times like he's trying to get more air on his corneas. She holds up her book.

"It's not for school," she tells him. "I just finished midterms so I have some downtime."

"Aw," Klaus says, half lidded. "Well, congratula… lations."

"Thanks."

"You pass?"

Of course she did. "I'm sure I did all right."

"Well, then, _cheers,_ Maestro."

Jamie has to trouble her back and shoulders to reach far enough to bump his limp, outstretched fist with her own. His hand is hard and cold. Klaus mumbles an apology for something Jamie doesn't follow, and then he pulls his feet back so his knees are up in the air and there's space at the edge of the couch. It's not far-fetched to assume he's coming down from some sort of hallucinogen.

"What's it called?" Klaus asks as he drops his arm so freely that it bounces on the cushion from the impact. "Your book? Or novel or whatever?"

Jamie feels like she's fulfilling some type of civic duty when she answers, " _A Farewell to Arms._ "

"Huh. Okay."

His eyes close all the way and Klaus lets his mouth crack open just a couple centimeters.

"I don't think Hemingway knew any real women," he continues after a moment, sudden and lucid, and Jamie feels kind of shitty for being surprised that he even knew the author. She didn't have any good reason to think he wouldn't be well-read. "Right? Do you? Or at least he didn't talk to any of them. Unless he maybe wrote her like that on purpose-- sorry-- uh, have you read it before?"

He's so candid that Jamie can't help smiling; it's like he's taking her on a step-by-step tour of his own blurry thought process, opening his doors so she can see right inside. "I just started it this morning," she says.

"Nice. Oh, fuck." She snorts a laugh from the whiplash. "Uhhhh, wait. What did I just say? I don't think I spoiled anything."

"No, you didn't," Jamie says.

"I feel so bad for the lady in that book, like, just because she was written so terribly. Only her. I forgot her name. Catherine, just remembered," Klaus says. "She deserved better than sad Hemingway's bad dialogue could ever give her. When you read that book you'll think… oh, shit… he must have been so sad. You'll see."

"I'll pour one out for him when I'm finished," Jamie promises. "Catherine, too."

"That's a good idea," Klaus says.

Despite the scant number and duration of their meetings, it feels as though a dynamic has been established wherein Klaus is the one to carry, move, and nourish a conversation, so Jamie goes back to reading when she realizes he's fallen asleep even though he'd seemed like he had more to say.

She doesn't have a chance to get lost enough in the prose to see what Klaus is talking about before Vanya arrives with her special delivery.

"Klaus?" she says, hovering over her brother. Damn. He really is sleeping. "Klaus. Klaus. Klaus? …Shit. Hello?"

Though the rest of him stays still, Klaus holds out his hand. Vanya gives him the tall, insulated paper cup and he drifts it toward his face.

"Are you okay?" she asks when he opens his eyes and takes a courageously large sip before even testing the temperature. "You can like, crash here for the afternoon if you want."

"Nah, I'm fine," Klaus says. "Good coffee."

"Are you sure?"

"Mm."

"Did you, uh…" Vanya sits down on the couch next to him after Klaus swivels himself upward and pats the cushion next to him, then invitingly moves all the way over to the edge so she has extra space despite his being a foot taller than she is. She's quite stiff, awkward even around her own family, but she still sits near him instead of all the way on the opposite side. "Where did you stay last night?"

"Aw, Vanya," Klaus says. "Are you _worried_ about me?"

"Yes."

"Oh." He laughs just once, his chest going in and out and his exhalation sounding a little manic. "Forgot that only works on Diego. It's no fun with you honest ones."

Low and curious, Vanya asks, "How is Diego?"

"You haven't… ah… Sorry, haven't talked to him? …Lately?"

"No, not lately," Vanya says. She doesn't acknowledge how he keeps almost nodding off. "I've been busy, I guess."

"Ugh, I bet he'd be so much fun if he just _relaxed,_ " Klaus says. "I do my best, but the guy might just be a lost cause. Guess we'll see."

Vanya frowns. She might not have anything to say to that. Klaus closes his eyes again and gulps down more coffee, sighing vocally after he swallows.

"Anyway, hate to be the bearer of no news," he continues, "but I'm doing just fine sowing my wild oats out there."

"Okay," Vanya says defensively. "You just look…"

"You look totally strung out," Jamie says, because Klaus isn't her brother and Vanya probably isn't going to.

"Whoa," Klaus says. "Oh, man, it must be bad, then, huh? Superstar Jamie-midterms doesn't have any big reason to worry about me and even she sees it."

"Sees what? You've been practically falling asleep in front of us since you got here. You should just take a nap," Jamie says. What did he mean by superstar? "It's fine. We'll be quiet."

"I _really_ did just come to say hi this time," Klaus says. He drags a hand down his face, pulling at his cheeks. "I have plans across town later, so as much as I'd love to cozy up under one of your blankets by the warmth of your television and unregulated space heater, I'm afraid I simply cannot stay."

He looks past Vanya at nothing and grimaces like he's been offended. Jamie wishes she could figure out what's wrong.

"What kind of plans?" Vanya asks.

"Just meeting up with a friend," Klaus says without missing a beat. "I'll leave in a second. How are you doing, though?"

"Me?" Poor Vanya seems surprised to be asked after. She always does.

"Yes, of course. Studies going okay, Mozart? You win a Grammy yet?"

Vanya smiles down at her lap and says, "No, not yet."

"Well, one of these days." Klaus shakes his head and tilts his neck back, blinking his eyes open wide again and then letting them relax down back to normal. "You get the Oscar for best espresso, though, it's kicking in. Really did the trick, Little Sis, you're the best."

"You're welcome."

"I swear I didn't stop by just to bum a caffeine high off you," he says as he stands up, though he doesn't sound very perky. "But I do have to scram now that I've been sufficiently resuscitated, so…"

When he stands up, Klaus wobbles and has to bend to grab onto the armrest.

"Whoa. Klaus," Vanya says, moving to catch him.

Klaus smiles and steadies himself before she can get to him, though Vanya probably couldn't have helped much if she'd tried. Klaus seems to be skin and bones, more lanky teenage boy growth spurt skinny than malnourishment skinny, she hopes, but he could still probably carry ninety-pound Vanya over his shoulder. She's stronger than she looks, but she still couldn't be much of an anchor for somebody like him. 

Klaus conures up a dim smile and dismissively says, "Thanks for everything, Vanya. Well, _auf wiedersehen_ and all," as he heads for the door.

Vanya frowns. He pats her on the head as he passes her, then takes a few whimsical, spinning steps around on his way over to Jamie.

"Good luck with Henry and Miss Catherine," he says, then he hands her the coffee cup with his other hand on the door and adds, "you finish this off. Focus and work hard, everyone, don't forget to stay in school…" and then finishes up his exit of their tiny living room and sweeps himself down the dormitory hall.

Vanya's still frowning when she shuts the door behind him. Jamie feels the considerable weight of the cup warming her hand and doesn't tell her roommate that it remains almost entirely full.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was a big slacker in high school and college and grad school and never read a farewell to arms or any other books for that matter. but let me tell you right now…………. i know enough.


	3. twenty-four

Despite her overhanging intention to get ahold of him all night, the nature of afterparties means that the wind had swept the two of them up in opposing spirals and shown Daisy that much like herself, her perceived guest of honor is perpetually free falling through the excitement of an unfamiliar community, his enthusiastic spirit weightless in the societal breeze. 

Her mind looks like a completed puzzle with none of the pieces connected, gaps between each and every one of them making room for rivers of nonsense and brilliance and nothing, but she remembers that his name is Klaus because nobody is named Klaus and even if they were, he doesn't look like he'd be one of them because he's too sharp and dark and skinny. He isn't wearing enough clothes as somebody named Klaus might be expected to wear, but he's pale and clumsy like a Klaus would be and that's another peg in the giant wooden board of evidence that he isn't a native and hasn't been around for very long.

He's been drinking something pink all night, but each time she sees him, the cocktail is housed in a different peacockish glass. The one he's holding when she finds him at half-past two is sharp and strange, likely made from crystal and shaped like an hourglass, two symmetrical triangles connected by a hollow sphere in the middle. He has a delicate hold on it and isn't talking to anybody.

"How'd you make it all the way out here?" Daisy asks as she enters his periphery, and he takes a second to look up at her, eyes bright and curious.

He sips from the chalice. The red fruits that had sunk to the bottom roll along its inner edge as it tips until it's entirely drained.

Klaus extends it out to her once it's drained, then tilts it from side to side before he turns it upside-down. Stray remnants of liquor drip down and splash onto his bare feet like sickening, enchanted raindrops.

"How the hell did they get the strawberries in this?" he asks her in response. "They're just trapped in the bottom chamber. Is it just for decoration? What's the point?"

He sets it on the floor without waiting for an answer. When a shirtless man in a straw hat begins to pass him, hair stringy and dripping from the running waters of the infinity pool, Klaus leans toward him so far that he's practically lying sideways on the round, cushioned daybed that he's perched on. With his arm outstretched, Klaus wiggles his fingers to beckon the man closer.

He smiles at Klaus and hands him some sort of joint rolled in the kind of dark, patterned paper that Daisy knows is needlessly expensive.

"Yessss," he cheers softly. "Thank you, beautiful, uh, thank you, uh, what was it…? Jazz…?"

"Jake," the guy says.

"I'll get you back, Jake." 

Klaus winks, then he waves at Jake with only his fingers as his benefactor continues on his path. When he tries to push himself up, Klaus falters, then catches himself at the last moment and succeeds when he tries again.

"Uh… shit… where's…" Klaus says once he's upright, twisting around and patting the space behind him. He reaches in his right pocket and grins.

Daisy tries to think of another way to get his attention despite being only a couple of feet away. Maybe if she asks for a hit?

"Oh, yeah!" he recalls as though he'd forgotten Daisy was standing there. "I think I hitched a ride on some bus or limo or something? I can't remember, sorry," he says, then lights up, inhales, and laughs out a delicious miasmatic cloud, head tilted back so that it splays out into the air as his posture deflates. "Oh, fuck. That's not what I thought it was gonna be."

He breathes out the rest of the smoke. 

"What about you? Did you walk? Helicopter? Traffic's bad here tonight. And all the time, apparently, I've heard."

"No, babe, I meant…"

"Oh." Klaus taps some ash off into his empty glass. "Oh, then I just flew. Nothing inspiring, five hours of clear skies yesterday and looking forward to five more tomorrow."

Everyone else she's asked tonight has told her what kinds of jobs brought them out, who they're staying with, or what they'd done when they first started trying to play the brutal game of California living. The only newbies at places like this are either traveling and already successful, or nobodies who are about to be. Not a lot of attendants bring a big group of friends or an entourage to house parties; they're all at clubs at this time of night or in the middle of work and needing a full night of sleep before Friday morning tugs them back out under the microscope. 

Klaus doesn't seem to be very awed or impressed by any of it, but Daisy doesn't remember him from anything and he's just made it clear that he's nobody's guest, so she assumes his person means something somewhere else and it's a fault of her own for being unfamiliar. She's been paying close attention to the class standards for a long time to make sure she fits in, and she can sense the same inclinations and faint misplacement in him the same way she can detect when English isn't someone's first language regardless of how remarkably, exquisitely fluent they become.

Daisy keeps the fodder of their kinship in mind as she moves forward with her next step in networking. It's the most important skill in the industry, bar none, insurmountably foreshadowing talent and knowledge, and cultivating her abilities in pulling social strings is the only resort Daisy has been left with if she wants to survive.

More than that, she finds solace in seeing somebody around here who she can recognize comes from a similar place as she does.

"Fly in for anything special?"

Klaus taps more ash into the glass. Flaky shreds of black stick to the sugary wetness of its walls and don't yet fall low enough to rest on the imprisoned strawberries down below.

"Ah," he says. "Just visiting family. I don't know how special that is, guess it depends on who you ask."

She hadn't been expecting that. Daisy immediately runs through the messy roster of attendees in her progressively disorganized mind, but unfortunately there are a lot of skinny white people with green eyes in Hollywood.

It's a faux pas to solicit name dropping, so she doesn't try and break it out of him.

"It can be," she says. 

"Is yours?"

"Is my…?"

"Your family." His voice is muffled by his suspended airways, then he releases the breath he'd been holding to more thoroughly absorb the shit he's smoking. "Yeah. Are they special to you?"

"Sure they are. But they live all the way down in Georgia," Daisy tells him. "I haven't seen them in a while."

"You want to?" Klaus asks.

"Sure, of course," Daisy says diplomatically.

"Oh, shit," Klaus said. "Oh, no. You said that so _longingly,_ hey, can you not afford to, or something? That sucks."

You're not supposed to talk about money, either, and his candid response is startling, especially for someone too strung out of their mind to be manipulative or conniving to draw information out of her. No one would want that from Daisy anyway. Nobody knows who she is.

"I just have to save money between gigs," she says like she's reminding him of something he already knows. He must know. Someone in contact with a sibling from this world is unlikely to be so far removed. "It's a fickle industry. Really unstable."

"You must really love it then," he says slowly, non-judgmentally. He inhales, then wobbles as he stands. "Come on, let's get another drink, okay? Forget your troubles. They're super free."

The way he sticks his arms out to keep himself barely vertical from his rolling center of gravity almost looks like a dance, swooping and graceful instead of unflattering like it should be on a drunk person. He's fine after a moment and gestures for Daisy to follow him. As they pass a cluster of ivory lawn chairs, he waves delicately at some kid sitting on the edge of one and places the joint in their mouth without breaking his stride.

Daisy looks back and sees them inhale without inspecting the substance just like Klaus had done, then they smile and hold it up in the air in appreciation. Klaus doesn't see it, but Daisy smiles back in acknowledgement because at the moment, she's with him.

Klaus is a natural. Daisy has been coming to these for over a year and is already familiar with quite a few of the regulars, mostly C-listers and their affiliates who she's worked diligently to effectively disguise herself to play, but he's got people waving back to him and tapping his friendly outstretched hands like they're long-time acquaintances, at the very least. Amidst his gentle waves and feathery, flirty touches, Klaus grabs one woman's hand and gets her to spin him as he sways off-beat to the mellow house bass, then pats her on the cheek as they near the cocktail bar. 

Once again, Daisy assumes that Klaus has forgotten about her. It’s common for people to do that to one another at these things, so she doesn’t take it personally. In the meantime, Daisy has continued to travel alongside him as she keeps up her own duties by making sure to acknowledge those she knows and nod a greeting to those she doesn't, exchanging mutually hollow promises to catch up with anyone close enough to hear her. She's made sure not to be a nobody, but being around Klaus makes her realize how formulated and businesslike her interactions must be coming off in comparison. She was wrong about his work ethic; he really seems to be operating without an agenda after all.

The bartender grins at Klaus when he presses his hands on the immaculate surface of the bar, but his eyes are contrastingly sad when he says, "Shit, man, I'm sorry. Not in good conscience."

"Oh, no, no," Klaus says, unwavering, whimsical and confident. "Not for me. For my lovely, um, what was your…? Fuck, sorry, I'm a little…"

"Daisy, babe," Daisy says.

"…Lovely friend Miss Daisy," Klaus amends. "But she's going to have two, so, please. If you would."

Daisy's not as lifted as Klaus is, but she's still having trouble remembering the bartender's name. She knows that she knows him; he's an actor, too, a transplant from the Bay, and he has a chance at making it big just like anyone else does. She can't take any chances.

"It's okay," she says to him anyway, standing on her toes next to Klaus and bringing her arm up to rest on his shoulder. "It's cool, I'll watch him. You know I'm always true to my word."

Hopefully he doesn't remember Daisy too well either, because then he'll have no idea that she's never shown any evidence of something like that. Nobody around here is ever true to anything.

Klaus is a lot taller than Daisy is. His cheek brushes against the side of her arm when he turns to look at her, nodding downward as he tries to meet her eyes. Daisy sees him through the corner of her eye, but stays locked on the bartender as she maintains a coy and dazzling smile.

She takes her arm off of Klaus when the bartender finally concedes and pulls out two glasses to fill with poison.

They walk off, but Klaus never strays far from her and Daisy is happy to supply. The house special is tart and bitter, misleading in color, the berries infusing blinks of sugar.

Daisy drinks three of them before she realizes there is no way on earth she's going to be able to keep up with Klaus. She drinks four before he's on his sixth and she realizes she can open up to him.

In a place like this, opening up means authenticity, and authenticity means curiosity.

"Are you with business or talent?" she asks at last. Klaus has been talking about (she knew it) back alley culture enough for Daisy to assume it's safe to operate on an understanding of similarity and try and actually find out who his connections are; that is, if he hadn't been lying about that earlier.

Klaus hastily pulls himself off of the rim of his glass, sharp liquor sprinkling out of it as the motion jostles the liquid too much. With his eyes wide, he and shakes his head and points to his ear.

"Who did you come here with?" Daisy asks, louder this time.

"Oh, my sister?" Klaus says immediately. "Allison Hargreeves?"

"No shit," Daisy responds. She wasn't expecting to recognize whatever name he threw out and thought she'd be learning of someone new, another name to remember and a potential one to drop ("Guess whose brother I got drinks for after the gala," she'd offer during brunch).

Klaus takes another sip and then seems to realize that he's gotten splashed in the crossfire of his own erratic movements, looking down and brushing his fingers over the low neckline of his sheer cropped vest, pressing on the damp spots left by the drink. His eyes are unfocused.

"Yep," he says.

 _That is so fucking interesting,_ Daisy wants to say, because she knows Allison Hargreeves. Everyone knows Allison Hargreeves, glamour, work, story and all. _Which one are you?_

Instead, she says absolutely nothing.

"She's not here though," Klaus continues without her. "Actually, I'm not sure where she went. It's been a few hours. Maybe she's sleeping already? She has a baby now, you know. Oh, you probably heard that already, it's pretty public. That's how I found out."

Daisy frowns but she still says, "Congratulations." 

"Thank you."

"Are the two of you not very close, then?" she asks. This is the last question the Hollywood Conversation Formula will allow unless Klaus asks her one back, lest she risk employing the same dynamic that exists on talk show interviews.

"No, we are, darling, I'm the apple of her eye," Klaus says, smiling, head tilted back and eyes half-lidded, "but our family doesn't really talk."

"No?"

"There's just too much to say."

Daisy takes the opening he's giving her. "Is your family…?"

"Hmm…" The ornate parachute pants Klaus is wearing only have one shallow pocket, but he digs around in it fastidiously like he's caressing the lining. "You a fan?" he asks distractedly.

"I used to have a crush on one of your brothers," Daisy answers. Her grandmother had sworn there was something evil about supernatural powers and so Daisy wasn't allowed to follow them while she was younger, but some of the kids at school displayed Umbrella Academy merchandise and she knew a little bit about the kids from the pictures. They all used to compare favorites at recess. 

"Diego?" Klaus asks. "He was the cute one."

"I don't know his name," Daisy admits. "The blonde?"

"Luther?" Something flings out of his pocket and drops on the stone floor. "Fuck--"

"I got it," Daisy volunteers. She's closer to the ground. "Luther was the strong one?"

"Yes, Daisy! Very good. And still strong. Still single."

"Oh, no! I'm too focused to move that far east," Daisy says. She finds what she's looking for and straightens back up. "What did-- what do _you_ do?"

"Nothing anymore," Klaus says fair-mindedly. "Thanks."

Daisy isn't sure what she'd just handed to him. More drugs, certainly, but whatever it was had been encased in a tiny velvet pouch, and Daisy has never seen anything like that before.

Klaus doesn't say anything more. He holds his glass out and Daisy accepts the cue to take it from him, then she watches him pinch open the bag and swallow down whatever was inside. He doesn't ask for his glass back and looks confused when Daisy tries to return it to him.

He isn't so much like her after all, Daisy slowly realizes. Having mistaken him for someone who was trying his damndest to fit in among an environment he wasn't made for, thinking he was maybe an actor or a model on a bender or someone squeezing his youth out too fast and rapidly becoming a husk of a person, Daisy feels almost foolish as Klaus unravels in front of her and demonstrates an innate ability to flourish as a fish out of water in a habitat she's been shakily trying to make a home out of for years.

While Daisy has worked and clawed and strived to make it here and is still barely succeeding, relying on independent studies of entertainment culture and mirroring the behavior of whom she hopes will one day be her peers, Klaus is blending in flawlessly on his second day and planning on withdrawing on his third. With no ulterior motives or aspirations, Klaus doesn't have a penny on him and doesn't seem to need one; he's either carrying a persistent and naive overabundance of trust in the world or has given up on it altogether.  

He is absolutely fucking blazed out of his mind, half present and half elsewhere (and somehow also half in-between), but he's still sharp-tongued and affable and popular, even as he struggles to stand. Nobody here would catch a person if they fell, regardless of who they were, but someone would probably call a medic over to help Klaus if he needed it.

It's hard not to feel bitter around somebody who prospers so effortlessly at something difficult while you struggle to survive. Watching him work-- not _work,_ Daisy thinks, this isn't work to him, this is leisure-- ignites an ugly sensation of insecurity, hot and despairing. Unlike the envy she feels when watching those who have already made it and wishing she could exist among them, when Daisy observes Klaus she feels a jealous desire to take his place, to ask what about him is making all of this work and why she, despite her desperate and calculated endeavors, cannot manage to do in several years what he could pull off in a few hours.

She can't tell if it's worse or better now that she knows he didn't come from rags like she'd thought. There's something to be said about being surpassed by somebody who came from the same place that you did, but there's also something to be said about assuming kinship with a super powered prince who'd been raised famous in an urban castle. Either way, it's not a good feeling. 

And it melts away every time one of them circles back around and bumps into the other, something about his clouded smiles and slurred familiar hollers consecutively giving Daisy more of a feeling of importance than she's gotten from even an ounce of press for as long as she's lived here.

"You won't see _me_ again, flower girl," he says to her at one point, "but I'll see you around on the big screen soon, baby, I'm sure of it. I'm sure of it. Uh-huh, can't wait."

Later, he offers to put in a good word for her. Daisy hears that all the time and it's always empty and she always accepts. She isn't sure how much influence Klaus actually has, or whether he's been saying that to everyone tonight-- or if he'll even remember her name when he sobers up.

"I'd love that," she tells him regardless, returning to her script where she feels comfortably vain and barren. Klaus himself seems like a stranger to routine, and in his state, Daisy doubts he would recognize that she's operating based upon her own. "Let's stay in touch."

She pulls a card out of her pocketbook and expects him to lose it before he's kissed his niece and sister _sayonara_ and ascended into the thin atmosphere of the auspicious desert skies.


	4. late twenties

**twenty-six**

 "Cool if I bum one?"

"What?"

"Do you mind if I--"

"Oh, yeah! Yeah, you want to take a few? I don't really like cigarettes. Just something for me to do while I wait for somebody."

He's friendlier than he looks. Something about his elegantly skeletal silhouette makes him seem like he'd be pompous or gloomy, for some reason, silky angular black hanging off of him like a vampire's cloak and metal necklaces inducing goosebumps on his bare chest while the November winds threaten to knock him down.

"You cold?"

"I'm all right. Unless you want to warm me up? Then, y'know. I'm freezing."

"Thought you were waiting for someone."

The guy shrugs back and holds out his carton for easier access. "He can wait for me, it's not that important."

Toxic, comforting, homey black and grey smoke dances in the air and front of them once the cigarette is lit. Ira lets him chat for a while and accidentally learns some tricks of the trade.  
  


 

**twenty-seven**

 "Cheers!"

A car's horn echoes in stereo while Klaus pours something clear from a flask into a half-empty bottle of Gatorade Red.

"Hey, baby, you look good!" shouts whoever out the window, voice carrying as they speed away.

Without looking up, Klaus hollers back, " _You_ look good, baby!" and then holds up the bottle, arm extended toward the direction of the street. "Whoo!"

He revels in the attention, letting it slam into him and then slide right down to puddle at his feet. It's like he can't absorb all of it at once; he's a fully soaked sponge, saturated with something ugly that he tries to override with the ephemeral excitement and empty affection of a stranger's lust.

"So what you got for me, pumpkin?" Klaus asks, tilting his head toward Ira and looking at him through his eyelashes, charming and sweet. "You're always such a delight, don't get me wrong, _but,_ well, last I saw you, you were fresh out of all my favorites."

His teeth are too nice for someone who does so many drugs. The bottom row is white and crowded, quickly hidden by the set on top as he grins. His front two teeth overlap unevenly and it's unfairly cute because he probably doesn't even know that it adds to his allure, in a weird way, giving him a humble, boyish magnetism.

"I just cleaned up, actually," Ira says, "but Ox is all you can afford."

"Who says?" Klaus takes a huge gulp from the capless bottle.

"You wouldn't be treating yourself to a sports drink cocktail if you were flush right now."

Klaus finishes whatever's in the bottle and tosses it between his hands before he fumbles and drops it, then watches it roll off of the curb. He ignores it and steps closer.

"I can introduce you to this cool lady I just met," he says, skinny little arm around Ira's shoulder and his soft, bouncy curls pillowing between their heads as he leans against Ira's temple. "She'll totally cut you a deal, so long as you do the same for me."  
  


 

 

**twenty-eight**

Ira's straight and always will be, but there's something different and special about Klaus. Nobody is anything when it comes to Klaus.

 

**twenty-eight**

Klaus kisses the baggie once Ira hands it over, then spins back around in sudden realization and grabs Ira by the wrist. He curls Ira's fingers around an unopened pack of cigarettes and pats the back of his palm when he lets go.

 

**twenty-eight**

"You know that guy?" a customer asks.

"Why? You know him?" 

"Scammed the shit out of Jess on the West side."

Ira doesn't doubt it.

"Be careful," someone else tells him a few months later as Klaus staggers away happily from a routine deal, strung out and already halfway through withdrawal. Ira has practice steeling himself against any sympathy that tries to press through him when he sees somebody in such a state. It's none of his business. "He might be a narc. Saw him with a couple of cops at a diner the other week."

Klaus is familiar with the police and he's also known for being dishonest and a cheat, so Ira wouldn't be surprised to know that he's sold people out before; he's incredibly, tragically desperate for a fix, careless enough to get caught snitching and not above humiliating himself or stabbing an old friend in the back if it came down to it.

"Must have been somebody else," Ira replies, because he can't profess his nature to be the same.

  
  


 

**twenty-nine**

Klaus spends the night at Ira's for the second time. It's a handful of degrees below freezing outside and he has a grudge against the shelter for some reason, or maybe the shelter has a grudge against him -- Ira can't keep the stories straight because Klaus talks in a lot of indirect metaphors with emphasis sometimes in the wrong places. He's grateful for the pile of blankets he finds on the futon and he's sweet to Ira's girlfriend when she sets the space heater on the coffee table for him.

"I didn't know you hated wine," Ira says while he watches Klaus readjust himself in his nest of pilled cotton and fleece.

"Red doesn't agree with me," Klaus says. "White's fine."

Ira shrugs, impressed with the responsibility of it all. No form of intolerance has ever stopped Klaus before.  
  


 

 **thirty**  

When the low growl of thunder rolls into a sharp, booming crack and the sky gives way to sheets upon sheets of cold spring rain, Ira clocks someone startling out of the corner of his eye; a familiar, lanky silhouette that elicits a warm and confusing swirl of excitement and dread.

He's used to seeing Klaus in libraries when it rains. He didn't often have a lot of options during the day, when shelters would close their doors and whomever's couch he was bumming would lose its vacancy, and Ira had been in the same position when they first met. Unlike Ira, however, Klaus had very little ambition, and while Ira rose out of rags via diligence and entrepreneurship, Klaus had always seemed quite content to set up camp somewhere right out in the open with a stack of books, weary limbs flaccid in a short pink round-chair as he waited for the storm to pass.

As he listens to the smacking and splashing of raindrops on the ceiling and against the windowpanes, Ira contemplates approaching his old client. He's half and half on his decision when Klaus sees him first and calls him over in a volume far too high for the top floor archives.

"It has been _such a long time,_ hasn't it?" Klaus asks as he grabs Ira by both of his arms and pulls him closer, squeezing his biceps and accidentally bumping his chin on Ira's shoulder. The customary handshake is renounced, apparently, without any exchange of goods.

Out of habit, Ira sizes him up as Klaus steps back to talk. He's a little less gaunt than Ira remembers him, and he's not straightening his hair anymore -- or maybe it's just more grown out than usual -- but his eyes have that same excited mossy eagerness and his teeth are still too nice for somebody who's done as much shit as he has.

Ira smiles. "Almost a year, huh? How you been?"

Klaus has this way about him that has always made Ira feel too comfortable while engaging with him, safe and seen and at home in a way he's really needed for most of his life, and that's been a dangerous, shitty downfall because Klaus isn't exactly trustworthy and has owed Ira money for most of the time they've known each other. It's astounding how he's been able to get away with that so consistently, despite Ira's being prepared to deal with him and the effects of his draw. He'd disappeared a while back and probably found a new hook up, and Ira doubts Klaus hasn't been using the same abilities to his advantage on them.

"Well," Klaus says, "my old man fuckin' kicked it."

He holds out a fist and Ira punches it, then opens up for a high-five. It's not the first time someone's prompted Ira to respond this way to that kind of news.

"Yeah?" Ira says, meeting Klaus and his cold hand a second time. Klaus is the kind of person you'd expect to have chapped or clammy palms, but they're always smooth even though the tips are all bitten up.

"Uh-huh, about six months back," Klaus reports. He still owes Ira a couple hundred bucks and a guy like him has got to have quite the inheritance.

The thing with Klaus, though, is that he's never paid up with cash without another present transaction happening in the moment -- it's like he lacks object permanence, or something. He's perpetually in debt. The only way to get him to hand over any amount of cash has been when Ira's exchanged a little something extra at the same time, knowing Klaus has no motivation to pay for anything unless he's got an immediate reward coming to him as he does.

"Congrats." Ira smiles and Klaus winks at him, which he understands is his in. "How you been celebrating?"

Klaus shrugs and twitches his eyebrows up and down, eyes half lidded and knowing. Ira leads him somewhere more private.

"I just got some shit in from New England," Ira says once they're safely bordered between two tall shelves of political biographies. "I can throw in a sample if you wanna pay me back for last time."

He has to shush Klaus when he laughs. Like always, it's soft and feathery with characteristic delight, but he's still being too loud for a drug deal at the library.

"You don't have to do that," Klaus says. "If you wanna give me, like, five minutes, I can get you the, uh… What was it? Two?"

"Three hundred," Ira says, craning back.

Klaus chuckles again. "Okay." He smiles and curls his whole palm around Ira's shoulder, squeezes, and lets their chests brush against each other as he inches past him and leaves Ira alone right there in the aisle.

"You find someone else?" he calls quietly, curiously. It'd make sense.

Klaus shrugs and says, "Naaah. Not really."

Ira follows him.

They pass by a table of teenagers studying for their summer classes, then another with an older woman surrounded by thick texts and scribbling something in a notebook. They pass the restrooms. They pass the shoddy CD collection where Ira sees an older businessman loitering, passing time. Klaus startles again when he realizes Ira's behind him.

"Oh," he sighs out, hand on his chest before he winces a smile. "All right."

He slows down for a moment so Ira can catch up. He tugs on Ira's ponytail gently as if to say _hello again!_ while they walk side by side.

Ira has been in the game long enough to instinctively relax his body when he's around someone who looks like they might be either unhinged or in a position of authority, but he can't keep the alert out of his pulse when he notices how close they're getting to the man in the all-black assassin's outfit, especially when he raises his head and looks right at Klaus.

"Hey," Klaus says.

The man narrows his eyes and Ira gets ready to split.

"Soooo," Klaus sings out softly, but Ira doesn't quite let his guard down, remembering all of what he'd heard about Klaus before. Klaus lightly punches the dude in the arm and then leans on him and says, "Can I get my wallet."

With calculation, Ira asks, "This your boyfriend?"

"Oh my God, don't be _weird,_ " Klaus says. "He's my brother."

"Oh."

"We're adopted."

"Oh."

The surly look doesn't leave his brother's face. Klaus lets go, and the guy pokes him sternly and says, "Why? Who's this?"

"One of my many ex-lovers," Klaus says comfortably. Ira can't tell if he's joking.

"Really."

"Come on, don't act like you didn't hear him back there before. _Did you find someone else?_ " Klaus parrots, interjecting sorrow into his voice that Ira definitely hadn't exuded when he'd said it. "It's no big deal. I did sell some of his shit to buy some of _my_ shit back in the day, though, so…"

He holds out his hand and does a grabby, beckoning motion.

His brother looks right at Ira, his eyes smoldering with mistrust. "Is that so?" he says. His voice is smooth and low. "How much does he owe you?"

"Aw, _come on,_ Diego, you know I've been trying to make amends! Would I lie to you?"

"Yes." His eyes stay locked on Ira's. "How much?"

"Three-fifty," Ira says and then hopes Klaus will pick his jaw back up and erase the betrayal glossed over his features before his brother sees it. It's not like he doesn't owe Ira more than an extra fifty dollars after all these years.

Without breaking eye contact, Diego reaches into his pocket and pulls out a plain leather wallet that doesn't look like it would belong to Klaus. He fishes out a couple of bills and hands them over, right there in the middle of the library where everyone can see them. Ira maintains as much indifference in his posture as he can to offset as many suspicious glances as possible, but he still checks to make sure it's all there.

"See you," Diego orders. He grips Klaus by the shoulder and Klaus aggressively, petulantly shakes him off.

Ira really does need to go before someone realizes what's going on. He has too much self-preservation to try and figure any of this out.

"All right," he says. "See you around."

"Yup. See you around-- _ow!_ Okay, _Diego._ Well, then, bye-bye, sweet thing," Klaus amends. "You take care."

To keep up appearances, Ira scoffs so he can balance out his smile as he waves goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> diego: klaus your life is so fucking dangerous. stop talking to your old dealers you're going to get in trouble  
> diego: *blatantly and openly hands over a wad of cash in a public space to someone who is very obviously a drug dealer* you just don't think things through! what would you do without me little bro
> 
>  
> 
> i watched like a thousand shitty buddy college/high school movies for inspo on this one guys. something about them just inspires me.


End file.
